Demagogue

Atrios

It is obvious that he didn't even read that TNR piece and is just basing his reaction on Yglesias' narrow response in Tapped.

I'm guessing he won't be joining the Coalition for Darfur any time soon, seeing that he thinks genocide is just a meaningless little "pet issue" - one obviously far less important than Jeff Gannon or pictures of his fucking cat.

Pathetic.

Mark Leon Goldberg, on the other hand, has a very good post on Just's article

[B]eyond pointing out this or that hypocrisy behind the administration’s tough rhetoric on Darfur (and there are many) Just's article got me thinking that liberals like myself ought to spend some more time criticizing our own family. Senators John Corzine and Barack Obama, and Representatives Donald Payne and Michael Capuano have been the true Democratic leaders on Darfur; they deserve much praise and are probably part of the reason that we have not yet lifted sanctions as part of a sweetener for the north-south peace accords. But what about the other, arguably more visible Senate Democratic leaders?

I follow this issue pretty closely and can’t recall Harry Reid having much to say about Darfur, nor Hillary Clinton. And while the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joseph Biden, likes to talk about Darfur now and again, he hasn’t taken the kind of leadership position on the issue that would be commensurate with his stature and clout as the Democrats' leading foreign-policy thinker.

Of course, as Just points out, total Republican domination of the apparatuses of power does not make it likely that there will be a radical change of policy anytime soon; the State Department is not likely to give up its dead-end hope that an end to the genocide in Darfur will be a dividend of the north-south accord. Neither is it likely that the little problem of genocide will disrupt the alliance forged between the CIA and Khartoum.

But even if it’s screaming from the sidelines, liberals -- and Democrats in government -- have a role in this debate. It’s time they screamed louder, and perhaps in unison.